On the surface, the situation for small businesses in Bluffton can seem dire.

Not just here, but across the country, the independent entrepreneur is struggling to cut costs, lower overhead and make ends meet. Too many are being forced out of business because of it.

Anecdotally, we've all seen too many businesses around here shutter up. Favorite places to grab a snack, pick up a book and meet up with friends have all bowed to the pressure of an unrelentingly down economy and packed up their shingles.

But Bluffton is nothing if not creative. Some small business owners have utilized (if we may borrow a tired, worn-out bit of corporate-ese) "outside the box thinking: to keep the doors open and have found their ingenuity paying off.

Bear's Comics finds niche

Throughout the realm of pop culture, geek flags are flying with pride. A certain nerdy fixation with costumed avengers righting wrongs and defeating the forces of evil with a well-placed "Thud," "Snikt" or "Blammo" has left the basements of the world and is basking in the sunlight.

The success of comic book franchises such as Spider-Man and Batman is nothing new, but now even underground nerd idols such as Scott Pilgrim and "Kick-Ass" are making their way into the national consciousness.

Here in Bluffton, our nerd community had found itself without a mecca until Bear Delahunt moved into town. With Bear's Comics, a completely untapped niche market has been tapped.

"My customers were really looking for a place to get together and talk about comics," Delahunt said. "We've got a group coming in here tonight to have a big meet-up to talk about computers and comics."

Delahunt moved to Bluffton from Los Angeles after finding out about how many schools the area had. With that many younger people, it was a sure bet there were a decent enough crowd of self-styled geeks. If it seems like a risky venture, don't tell Bear that.

"I get tourists in here occasionally telling me 'a comic book store in Bluffton? That's pretty risky,' and I tell them, 'what, like we don't read in Bluffton?'"

Bluffton Automotive reinvents the wheel

From a young age, Stephen "Bev" (it rhymes with Steve) Brodie knew he was going to work on cars. In high school, he outfitted his parents' garage with an engine lift so he could get an early start on learning how to completely rebuild a machine from the ground up.

That dedication paid off when he opened the doors to Bev-Tech.

"When the business first started, Bev-tech was geared more toward a performance-oriented market," Brodie explained.

Outfitting souped-up Honda's with the latest in horsepower-boosting tech fulfilled Brodie's lifelong obsession with speed, but the business model soon proved to be less than sustainable.

"The area doesn't have much of a market for that," he explained. "And the people who are spending money on that don't spend much, and they only spend it once. I eventually tried to market it more towards service."

"Plus," he added with a laugh, "nobody knew how to pronounce the name and nobody knew what we did. Some people thought we were computer techs."

With a vague business name, a customer base that couldn't sustain a business and job offers coming in for his expertise, Brodie was nearly ready to shut down at the end of last year. Then, he realized there was still a chance to reinvent the wheel.

"I got hooked up with a few guys at BFG, Bryant Gordillo and Will Dixon, and they came up with some marketing materials," Brodie explained. "Will is the graphic guy, and he came up with logo. Then we were brainstorming on new names and it just hit us: Bluffton Automotive, duh. It makes complete sense."

With a new name and a new focus on automotive work beyond tuning up import cars, Bluffton Automotive hit high gear. These days, a quick glance into the garage bay at the shop shows a full floor with more than half a dozen cars at a time being serviced.

It's a long way from an engine lift in a garage.

Graham and Graham: Small business goes viral

It's a typical day at a typical Bluffton office. As they tend to, the cubicle dwellers are taking a quick break to check out the latest viral video at a co-worker's desk.

Crowded around the monitor, they're not watching a man take a shovel to the groin or the latest awful contestant from a reality singing show, they're watching Ted Huffman talk about barbecue.

And they are hooked. As Ted chops away at a cut of pork, talking about the way too few barbecue joints bother to cut the fat out, they watch intently. When he explains that this attention to detail is what makes his barbecue, quote, 'the S--t,' they all laugh. None of them are even aware they're watching a commercial. And if you ask the ad agency of Graham and Graham who created the video, that's the point.

"Web videos are nothing new, but a lot of them were very dry, almost like training videos" said co-founder Kelly Graham. "We thought, 'how can we create a vehicle that's not so formal and based on reality TV?'"

The result was a new kind of viral video called a WebAdVid. Designed to be shared between Blufftonians on Facebook pages and websites, these short videos present a side of local businesses that you won't see in a traditional ad. Three weeks into this new experiment in local marketing, the results are already coursing through Bluffton's facebook pages. The selection so far includes a look at new Bluffton restaurant Pour Richard's as its interior takes shape, a short video of Kelly painting Will Huffman's famous Bronco II and the aforementioned Ted Huffman monologue.

"That was really fun for him too," added Ann about Ted's train-of-thought delivery.

Those shoots are kept deliberately low-tech (every one of them was shot on an iPhone and mixed together using a simple video editing program) to not only deliver more for the client, but also to keep the fun, viral video style of the ads.

"We're trying to get to the core of the personality," said Kelly. "This isn't about setting up panning shots on the store. This is about telling a story. We wanted to tell real stories that let you relate to the people who run these businesses on a human level. It's not about Ted's BBQ, it's about the passion behind it."

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